ALBANY The state Department of Health has pushed back a deadline to apply for a license to grow and distribute medical marijuana.

The new deadline for businesses seeking one of five licenses statewide is now June 5, according to a notice posted Friday to the health department's website. It had previously been May 29.

The state said the delay is the result of a high number of questions about the application process and is pushing back the deadline to provide answers.

The state expects to award five contracts to private marijuana growers, who will each be permitted to open up to four dispensaries and distribute the drug to patients in New York certified by their doctors. It's estimated to take about nine months to grow the marijuana.

"Due to the number of questions received, the department has extended the date upon which it will post answers to May 21, 2015. The department is also extending the deadline for submission of applications," the Department of Health's notice reads.

"Applications for Registration as a Registered Organization must be received by the department on or before June 5, 2015. The deadline for issuing registrations has not changed."

The state opened up the application process last month for its new medical marijuana program, which is required by law to launch by January. Each license holder will be permitted to grow the drug and set up four outlets to dispense it to patients with serious illnesses or conditions.

The marijuana industry in Colorado is booming. The ‘green rush’ is on, and there are a lot of people in Colorado that are benefiting from the next great American industry. January and February of this year both set records for legal marijuana sales in the state. The numbers have been released for March sales, and the upward trend appears to be continuing. Per The Joint Blog:

There was roughly $74 million worth of legal cannabis sold in Colorado in March, setting a record for the third straight month.

In additional to the $42 million in recreational cannabis sold in March, there was $32 million worth of medical cannabis purchased. This is according to data released by the state’s Department of Revenue.

It’s like I always say – why isn’t every state doing this? While some states are doing everything they can to keep marijuana prohibition in place, Colorado is benefiting greatly from allowing legal sales of a substance that is safer than alcohol. April tends to be the biggest marijuana sales month of the year, so I expect this trend to continue in Colorado when the April numbers are released.

Pot grown outdoors in California could become much more potent as climate change and drought continue to wreak havoc on the state's fragile ecosystems.

According to a new study from The Daily Climate, rising temperatures and CO2 levels will likely boost the medicinal and psychoactive properties of plants, including cannabis.

"If you go back to the times plants evolved on land, the average CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels were 1,000 parts per million; today it's about 400," Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service who led the research, said.

This is significant because only 4 percent of plant species have adapted to these's lower CO2 levels. The rest—including cannabis—still feel deprived.

But Ziska, who specializes in "weed migration patterns in the face of climate change," believes global warming will benefit these deprived plants with more optimal levels of CO2, meaning "marijuana grown outdoors will likely become stronger and require less water to thrive."

James Duke, a retired USDA entho-botanist, explained that environmental stressors—such as California's drought—typically cause plants to exhibit more medicinal properties.

"The more stress a plant gets—heat or cold or disease or just plain beating it—the more medicinal and less edible it becomes," Duke told The Daily Climate.

Stress causes plants to convert proteins, carbohydrates and fats into "secondary metabolites that protect the plant," he further explained. As far as marijuana is concerned, that means a potential increase in THC, CBD and other cannabinoid levels.